Why the lack of pistols with a grip safety
- Thread starter Doyle
- Start date
OK, let me rewrite that. The cavalry wanted an AUTOMATIC safety; Browning and Colt decided to use a grip safety. (One had been used on the Model 1903 hammerless, and both Ehbets and Tansley had patented versions that worked to block the firing pin, anticipating the Swartz safety, for the 1905.)
I don't know which Model 1903 pistol has a "tiny" grip safety. The Model 1903 hammer pistol has no grip safety; the one on the Model 1903 hammerless is the full backstrap.
Jim
I don't know which Model 1903 pistol has a "tiny" grip safety. The Model 1903 hammer pistol has no grip safety; the one on the Model 1903 hammerless is the full backstrap.
Jim
I HATE grip safeties. Of all of the new and old safety devices ever invented, in my opinion, it's the most intrusive and least useful. The fact that there are plenty of exceptional single action only guns out there without grip safeties should prove to everyone how utterly useless they are. When was the last time someone called a Browning Hi-Power a piece of junk because it lacked a grip safety?
Mike_Fontenot
New member
"So essentially I would ask. In this day does the grip safety have a purpose other than nostalgia?"
It certainly does for me. I HIGHLY value both my thumb safety AND my grip safety. My 10mm 1911 is pointed at parts of my body that I don't consider expendable, all day long (it's in an under-the-shirt vertical shoulder holster). I wouldn't be willing to do that, on a cocked gun, without multiple, redundant safeties.
Of the two safeties, the thumb safety is a "safer" safety: it blocks the sear and the hammer; the grip safety only blocks the trigger. (But on mine, the grip lever also controls the firing-pin-safety, which gives it some valued redundancy also).
But in addition to the redundancy of the thumb and grip safeties that I value, I especially am grateful to have the grip safety in those unavoidable cases where the thumb safety HAS to be off, even though I'm not ready to shoot ... like when chambering the first round, or when manually ejecting the chambered round. During those times, I'm very careful to stay off the grip lever. And I actually stay off the grip lever during ALL of my gun handling, except when I'm on or nearly on target ... like when drawing and re-holstering, for example. Because of these issues, the only other type of semi-auto I'd consider carrying (given my type of holster) would be a DA/SA carried hammer down, and cocking it with my weak thumb as I come onto target.
I HAVE seen some 1911's whose grip lever just barely protrudes aft of the grip ... I can see how those might not disengage the grip safety when the shooter tries to shoot. And the curved-MSH-type 1911's look like they might be susceptible to the same problem. But my 1911's grip lever protrudes far aft of the grip, and it only needs a tiny bit of travel to release the safety. My grip lever is the straight type, not the button type, so my palm tends to compress it along it's whole length. (I also use a fairly low hand position on the grip, and that makes a failure to disengage even less likely.)
The importance of a grip safety, and the importance of a thumb safety, also increases when the gun is carried cocked, and especially when it has a very light trigger with a very short travel (like my current 3 lb trigger, and I've previously had it as light as 2-1/4 lb, when my recoil spring was lighter). People who are comfortable carrying a gun with no safety (and one which is either fully cocked or partially cocked) very likely have a much heavier trigger than mine, and one with much longer trigger travel. Even then, I wouldn't want it pointed at me all day.
It certainly does for me. I HIGHLY value both my thumb safety AND my grip safety. My 10mm 1911 is pointed at parts of my body that I don't consider expendable, all day long (it's in an under-the-shirt vertical shoulder holster). I wouldn't be willing to do that, on a cocked gun, without multiple, redundant safeties.
Of the two safeties, the thumb safety is a "safer" safety: it blocks the sear and the hammer; the grip safety only blocks the trigger. (But on mine, the grip lever also controls the firing-pin-safety, which gives it some valued redundancy also).
But in addition to the redundancy of the thumb and grip safeties that I value, I especially am grateful to have the grip safety in those unavoidable cases where the thumb safety HAS to be off, even though I'm not ready to shoot ... like when chambering the first round, or when manually ejecting the chambered round. During those times, I'm very careful to stay off the grip lever. And I actually stay off the grip lever during ALL of my gun handling, except when I'm on or nearly on target ... like when drawing and re-holstering, for example. Because of these issues, the only other type of semi-auto I'd consider carrying (given my type of holster) would be a DA/SA carried hammer down, and cocking it with my weak thumb as I come onto target.
I HAVE seen some 1911's whose grip lever just barely protrudes aft of the grip ... I can see how those might not disengage the grip safety when the shooter tries to shoot. And the curved-MSH-type 1911's look like they might be susceptible to the same problem. But my 1911's grip lever protrudes far aft of the grip, and it only needs a tiny bit of travel to release the safety. My grip lever is the straight type, not the button type, so my palm tends to compress it along it's whole length. (I also use a fairly low hand position on the grip, and that makes a failure to disengage even less likely.)
The importance of a grip safety, and the importance of a thumb safety, also increases when the gun is carried cocked, and especially when it has a very light trigger with a very short travel (like my current 3 lb trigger, and I've previously had it as light as 2-1/4 lb, when my recoil spring was lighter). People who are comfortable carrying a gun with no safety (and one which is either fully cocked or partially cocked) very likely have a much heavier trigger than mine, and one with much longer trigger travel. Even then, I wouldn't want it pointed at me all day.
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Here's a list of some true Single Action Only guns that don't have grip safeties which work just fine:
Colt Mustang
Sig P238
Sig X-Five
Browning Hi-Power
CZ 75B Single Action (and similar styled guns like Witness Etc.)
Tanfoglio TZ 75
Ruger Mark I, II and III
S&W Model 41
Sig P210
Now, remind me why these guns don't need a grip safety, but the 1911 does???
Colt Mustang
Sig P238
Sig X-Five
Browning Hi-Power
CZ 75B Single Action (and similar styled guns like Witness Etc.)
Tanfoglio TZ 75
Ruger Mark I, II and III
S&W Model 41
Sig P210
Now, remind me why these guns don't need a grip safety, but the 1911 does???
Limnophile
New member
Three years ago I read up on the evolution of Browning-designed Colt autoloaders that resulted in the military's M1911. As noted above, my memory of what I read isn't great. I was motivated three years ago because of my interest in and appreciation of a thumb safety lock on a pistol. The only pistol I've handled with a grip safety is the 1911A1, and the grip safety was so unobtrusive as to be essentially nonexistent.
Here is a summary of safeties in pre-M1911 Colt service-caliber autoloaders based on what their instruction manuals (available as pdfs at coltaiutos.com) have to say:
- M1900 .38 ACP -- Two safeties. A sight safety -- with the hammer cocked, the rear safety was pushed down by the user to lock the firing pin. An internal safety I'm going to call a battery safety (I'm sure someone has a better name for it) -- it automatically locks the trigger, preventing it from being pulled unless the slide and barrel are fully in battery. Colt eventually abandoned the sight safety; thus, some M1900s were made without one.
- M1902 Military .38 ACP -- Two safeties. The battery safety, and what sounds to me like an inertial firing pin, so I'll call it that.
- M1905 Military .45 ACP -- Two safeties, the battery safety and the inertial firing pin.
- M1907 Military .45 ACP -- The instruction manual mentions only two safeties, the battery safety and the inertial firing pin. However, the home page for this model, http://coltautos.com/1907.htm, shows a grip safety. I suspect the photo is of an M1907 later modified to add the grip safety (only 207 were made).
- M1909 .45 ACP -- An interim prototype of which only 22 were produced. There is no instruction manual available, but photos show the presence of a grip safety.
- M1910 .45 ACP -- An interim prototype of which only 8 were produced. No instruction manual available, but the primary purpose of the prototype was to demonstrate the altered grip angle of 74° (as opposed to the earlier 84°). No instruction manual, but all photos show the grip safety, and some models were later modified to add the thumb safety lock.
- M1911 US Army .45 ACP -- Four safeties -- battery safety, inertial firing pin, automatic grip safety, and thumb safety lock.
Limnophile
New member
All modern handguns have safety devices. Some safety devices or combinations thereof are more effective than others. For example, a recent Yahoo search yielded the following results:
- "Glock negligent discharge" -- 110 hits
- "Glock accidental discharge" -- 3,840 hits
- "1911 negligent discharge" -- 23 hits
- "1911 accidental discharge" -- 42 hits
The anti-manual safety faction claims that one can effectively train to keep one's finger off the trigger until it's time to shoot, but for some reason it's not possible to effectively train to swipe a thumb safety off. I find this puzzling and the position untenable.
Don't forget what's between the ears of the handgun designer.
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Some folks have claimed that the disconnector is a "safety", preventing the an auto pistol from firing if the slide is not fully in battery. Some even tout it as a way to disarm an opponent by pushing on the muzzle of the gun so it can't fire. The Secret Service is reportedly trained to grasp the slide of a pistol and push it out of battery to keep the gun from firing. It will work, but I prefer to let someone else try it with a loaded gun.
A somewhat better case can be made for the inertia firing pin as a safety, since it prevents a hammer pistol from firing if a blow is struck to an uncocked hammer.
It is interesting that the two grip safeties I mentioned earlier (by Ehbets and Tansley) would have been better than the Browning type, because they did lock the firing pin, which the Browning safety does not do. In fact the grip safety as adopted blocks only the trigger bow; it blocks neither the sear nor the firing pin and is not really a very effective safety.
Jim
A somewhat better case can be made for the inertia firing pin as a safety, since it prevents a hammer pistol from firing if a blow is struck to an uncocked hammer.
It is interesting that the two grip safeties I mentioned earlier (by Ehbets and Tansley) would have been better than the Browning type, because they did lock the firing pin, which the Browning safety does not do. In fact the grip safety as adopted blocks only the trigger bow; it blocks neither the sear nor the firing pin and is not really a very effective safety.
Jim
Mike_Fontenot
New member
"It is interesting that the two grip safeties I mentioned earlier (by Ehbets and Tansley) would have been better than the Browning type, because they did lock the firing pin, which the Browning safety does not do."
It does in my Kimber (series II), and I really do value that.
It does in my Kimber (series II), and I really do value that.
Kimber uses their variation of the Swartz safety which was adopted by Colt in 1937 IIRC but dropped during the Second World War. The military did not feel they needed it and the standard safety was all that was used by them. Colt continued the standard safety in all post war production until the Series 80 safeties were introduced.
Kimber revived it in their Series II guns.
tipoc
Limnophile
New member
"Disconnector" I assume is the modern common name of what I called the "battery safety." All the early Colt instruction manuals just refer to it as the "safety" on their parts diagrams. It is nice to know that one's pistol is designed to fire only when the breech is fully shut, and the design must be excellent, because I can't recall ever reading of a failure of this kind. But, I have never thought of such an arrangement as a safety, but rather just responsible design.
Yeah, live-fire practice would be hairy.
Again, I've never thought of this as a safety device, although I can see that a non-protruding firing pin does offer safety over a protruding counterpart. The rearward protrusion of my CZ 82/83s' firing pins are protected by a rebounding hammer safety.
In my mind, based on what was drummed into it when learning to shoot a half century ago, a safety is a device that prevents an inadvertent pull of the trigger from firing the gun, a device kept on, but never relied upon, until just prior to shooting when it is disengaged.
Passive safeties that don't play a conscious role in the shooting process don't seem to be safeties to me, but rather safe design elements. While it's nice to know how they work when they effect how one handles the gun, if it doesn't play a routine role in the process of firing, it isn't a safety. For example, knowing how the rebounding hammer on my CZ 82 works gives me the confidence to manually decock the gun safely with a live round in the chamber should I ever need to do so. However, I have never done so, as I carry it cocked and locked and, when pausing during a string of fire, simply activate the thumb safety lock to safe the pistol. Thus, while the rebounding hammer allows for safe decocking and prevents accidental firing should the gun fall and strike the hammer, it does not deserve the moniker "safety," but rather is a good feature of safe firearm design.
In my limited use of pistols with grip safeties the mechanism was entirely passive -- ie, disengaged and re-engaged with no thought on my part. As such, I would not regard it as a safety, but would welcome it as a safe design element of the gun. However, one gentlemen above mentioned, among other things, adjusting his grip to engage the grip safety while holstering. If that can be done with ease, I can see the value in doing so and that ability would elevate that safe design feature to the status of a safety in my opinion.
I've never heard of even one instance of this happening. The 1911 employs a trigger bar attached to a trigger shoe, that only looks like it slides. The design of the trigger itself isn't that much different than that of a CZ 75B or many other SAO's without a grip safety. Even if the inertia of the trigger on 1911's could somehow cause the gun to fire, it can't do this while the safety is on. So, you'd really have to be waiving that gun around like a baseball-on-a-rope to theoretically make that happen!
Look, you guys are free to love your grip safeties! But, the bottom line is they are total nonsense and do absolutely nothing. Chamber indicators, internal locks, the Series 80 firing pin block - ALL of these are more practical than the grip safety as any kind of safety device. If you like the grip safety on 1911's because of nostalgia, or because "its always been there" - I get it, no big deal......but, at least admit that's all it is.
Why anyone would design a modern gun with a grip safety is beyond me - my guess is that some old crusty 1911 loving corporate lawyer looked at the prototype and said "better put a grip safety on that..." and the designer didn't have the fortitude to tell him to go pound sand.
It's possible that there are more 1911s out there that are "owned". I've often considered Glock to be a "gateway gun".
I would wager that there are many people who make the Glock their first firearm purchase for a number of reasons. They get recommended often because they are relatively low maintenance for first time shooters or people who are buying only one firearm for defense. These people can't be bothered to properly maintain a firearm such as the 1911, and sometimes not even their Glock.
Also people may be interested in Glock for the first firearm because they know law enforcement also carries Glock and they figure if it's good enough for LEOs it's good enough for them.
Now with 1911 owners you can expect that more than likely they already have prior experience with firearms and have a better understanding and practice of safe handling of firearms. I'm not implying that the 1911 is NOT safer, just that the likely owners of 1911s are statistically more likely to handle them in a safe manor.
Also 1911 owners are notorious for owning multiple 1911s. Yes, there are Glock owners who have multiple Glocks (myself included), but I know that the eventual outcome of my firearm collecting is that I will own multiple 1911s.
There are exceptions to all of this I'm sure, but I believe these AD/ND situations come from lack of experience and/or general negligence that would be avoided if one practiced safe handling of firearms.